breakfromthescene.net

If I posted an article about Muse even a year ago, it may have been more impressive than now. With singles like Supermassive Black Hole and Starlight, they’re all over the radio. They’ve made history in Wembley (with George Michael trying to steal the limelight), they had an amazing gig at Glastonbury 2004, and have been getting stronger year by year.

Black Holes and Revelations was released in 2006 with a spectrum of songs, both stylistically and by subject. This is the history of Muse that you’re most likely to know about, so I’m going to delve deeper.

Muse started in 1994 under other names. By 1997 they had settled into what we now know as Muse. Matt Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme and Dom Howard recorded their debut album in 1999 called Showbiz. Other than the lack of a million guitar pedal sounds of future Muse albums, this doesn’t sound like a debut album. The songs are flowing and full of raw emotion, and Bellamy is not afraid to let his voice soar to astronomic heights even from the start.
Some people knocked them as Radiohead wannabes at this point, which I find preposterous. They are both rock bands with guitars and have a singer who sings higher than usual. That’s where it ends as far as I can see. Their songs differ greatly, and even more so as Muse (and Radiohead) evolved.

Muse were capturing people’s imaginations. In 2001 they released Origin of Symmetry. The songs are pulse-pounding among other cliches, but they’re for the most part fast paced and raging as a result of the songs developing while on long tours with Showbiz. If a Muse fan gives you a CD to start with, they’ll usually give you this one. Some of their most famous songs are from Origin: Newborn, Plug in Baby and their cover of Feeling Good.

Each of the band members have given me inspiration to play. As a pianist and singer I was filled with a new passion to better my skills - I just had to match as much of Bellamy’s range as possible. I don’t have the lowest notes but I’ve reached above his high range now, and am furthering myself at piano. As a bassist I learned from Chris Wolstenholme almost as soon as I picked up the bass to more intermediate riffs and pure endurance. As I haven’t learned the drums I haven’t learned technique from Dom Howard but it has made me more aware of drum beats, from the simple and effective to the pummeling beat driving the madness of the tunes.

If you have only heard one album of Muse, you have not seen all that they have to give. Every album has its own taste or edge, one that may hit home with you. Bellamy’s voice appeals to some and not to others, and I understand that. If that isn’t an issue, explore further. It may open up new areas of music for you as it did for me. A big and sweeping statement, but that’s what Muse is all about. Screaming about the end of the world can’t exactly be conservative.

Find more at muse.mu or their myspace.

A friend of mine has been working on a website for video tabs over the past few months. To see the tabs requires a quick registration which allows you to go onto the forums, and he’s asking any and all to join.MyVideoTab is relatively new and the numbers are only growing, so if you’re interested head on over!

There will be video and written lessons being posted as time goes on, and a system will be arranged for the members to join in posting the video tabs for their favourite bands. You can be the moderator of a subforum with 10 members backings for the need for that subforum.

All the information is on the site itself, so if you’re an interested guitarist, there you go.

I’m back from my respite, if that’s the word. I’ve journeyed to sunnier places and done as much random things as I could before returning to the daily grind again. One thing I did was go to a movie called St. Trinians. It’s a movie that’s a bit of fun, it was good for what it was, we’ll leave the movie review there. One of the goth-looking girls looked so much like a girl from my town that I went looking for pictures of her online, and none were big enough or good enough to show my friend.

Well, this search gave me far more than I could have expected. I came across her Myspace. I knew nothing of her before, other than being in this movie, but she’s a singer and a good one. So while my reason for searching was a bit shallow, I got something even better.

Here is a documentary that Paloma Faith posted herself, take a gander.

Ever felt a twinge of guilt when you downloaded albums from the net? Have you come into money since or always wanted to give directly to the band?

Dear Rockers, I have downloaded your album and felt bad. I sneaked into your concert because I was promised tickets. Here’s a fiver for your troubles.

Think it’ll catch on?

With Baroque composers firmly off my mind, there will be big updates to resume normal service.
If I didn’t have to write about them, believe me, I would have been more interested in writing for the site ten times out of ten.

Now if only I had an internet connection for the next week.
Next I talk to you I will know *everything* about Jeff Buckley, Enter Shikari and Patrick Wolf.
Happy Christmas everybody!

While I write my second 2,000 word essay due for this week (the first on developmental psychology, this one on 17th century Italian composers and their development of new genres), I’ve been slow in posting. Fear not, I have a lot to come back with. If you reeeally want to know about 17th century Italian composers, give me a shout! It’ll be riveting.

Anyway! First of all, I have Jeff Buckley, Patrick Wolf and Enter Shikari to review.
Exciting news - I will be getting Tom Milsom’s brand new album over the Christmas period and giving it a whirl. It’s called Awkward Ballads for the Easily Pleased.

I have bands on Myspace asking me for their time which I will also do. So there is plenty to come. For now, I have to discuss the finer points of the Florentine Camerata…

This week I will be listening to

• Enter Shikari
• Jeff Buckley

with a review of Patrick Wolf to follow shortly. If you have any suggestions for future weeks leave a comment on the site.

On the advice of a friend I got the album Bubblegum by Mark Lanegan. For a while I tried to put my finger on what his voice reminded me of, and it sounded like some of the Queens of the Stone Age. A bit of research later, and I find that it’s the same singer! He sung a lot of backing vocals, and sings lead vocals in three songs of the album Songs for the Deaf. You’ll recognise instantly his voice from This Lullaby on Lullabies to Paralyse.

Other than the singing there isn’t much to connect the two bands. Some of the slow-paced songs of each band have a similar shambling beat moving along. Josh Homme, Nick Olivieri and PJ Harvey are some of the many artists that joined Lanegan on this solo album in various songs. The artists that come in to the album give great flavour to each song. Hit The City features PJ Harvey singing harmony to Mark, and it just sounds so impressive. Two nicely shaped melodies at once, and the chunky sound of the guitar behind it fills it out.

There’s a lot of variation from song to song in volume, instrumentation and mood. From Hit the City with loud aggressive guitars and lyrics, Mark moves to Wedding Dress which is laidback but menacing. Methamphetamine comes back to loud chanting - “Rollin just to keep on rollin, rollin just to keep on rollin” and it sounds a bit industrial like a train track or prison lines crushing rocks. The mix of songs on the album is perfectly balanced between calm and pensive to good head-bashing songs.

It’s not often that I listen to very deep voices, but what drew me to Mark Lanegan were the melodies he sung. They weaved their way through each song with some quirky tunes. I can’t pick out from the guitar or voice any particular ‘cool bits’ or parts where they really show off, but it just works so well as a whole.

I was suprised at how much Bubblegum grew on me, I’d recommend it to those who liked the slower-paced Queens of the Stone Age music because - well, it’s him on some of those tracks. If you don’t like QOTSA, don’t let them sum up what Mark Lanegan is about, just see for yourself. There’s a depth to the tracks that you don’t get on first listening, which makes it all much more rewarding. As always, for more information visit his website or his Myspace and enjoy.

It’s not often that I turn on MTV2 and see something new. While I’m not early on this particular bandwagon as usual, when I saw them playing my friend told me how young they were. The ages range from 16 to 19. They look it, but they really don’t sound it. I got my hands on their first EP, On The Prowl, and I’ll certainly be looking for their album.

The story goes that the band began as a means to win their school’s Battle of the Bands. Straight away they started plugging themselves around their native Australia with the EP On The Prowl. Their second EP Cement Cement got even more attention and media and record label attention exploded from there.

They have since supported many of the big bands of today such as Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party and more. They’ve played at dozens of festivals and their first full-length album Yes Yes Vindictive is out in Australia this month while the British release date is Christmas Eve.

There were just six songs on the EP, as can be expected. I listened to it twice in a row the first time I heard it, and I was really impressed. I wasn’t impressed just because of their age (there’s naturally going to be an element of that) but the songs were good. They were racy, engaging, inventive. The main songwriter and singer/guitarist Amandah Wilkinson definitely has that creative spark. Her voice is strong and she is brave in singing out. It’s a very jazzy voice, like Tomika (played by Maryam Hassan) in the movie School of Rock. She plays in the band with keyboardist Sarah Gardiner, bassist Ashley McConnell, violinist Taylor Henderson and drummer Tim Commandeur.

You can hear the live band sound in this EP, whether this is intentional or the budget of production. It gives a good indication of how their live act sounds like, and they sound like they’d get a crowd going. Song About Ping Pong is the first track, and their most popular single to date. It shows what the band’s all about - fun music, plain and simple. It’s fast and catchy, and Amandah’s voice is a great asset to the song. She sings against the drums alone and raises the tension, and the violin as another feature of the band plays riffs when the whole band come in as a thrashing response.

Paperclips continues to show their variety in the music. A drumroll intro and soft verse-loud chorus is given good differentiation. Catalogue Kids is a happy-go-lucky song, with the violin featuring in the verse and keyboards blazing in the chorus. Teapot gives Amandah a chance to show off her voice more, over a thumping accompaniment, and she takes this opportunity to show her ability and her stage presence - she by no means shies away from the microphone.

Terminal Disease continues in the same vein, reminding me somewhat of Arcade Fire other than the vocals. One Yellow Button then changes pace with piano, violin, quiet bass and quiet drums accompanying. It’s a more serious song than the rest, a good ballad. The violin really makes it special with an unobtrusive countermelody. That sounds wordy… Its melody soars above the voice without muddling the mixture, it’s a great addition.

I try hard not to put bands into boxes, but sometimes there are similarities between Operator Please and the Gossip. Mainly due to the strong voices and the live rock sound to the recordings. I’m starting to favour Operator Please for the extra flavour added by the keyboard and violin, and the use of the voice. Beth Ditto bravely goes all out in singing and it’s impressive, but not something you can listen to every day. I have to get Operator Please’s new album, Yes Yes Vindictive, and see where they are headed.

What’s great is that this is only the beginning of this band, and they are going to develop and explore music as time goes on, something I don’t get to watch in a band that often. You can find them at their Myspace or at www.operatorpleaseband.com.